


take the pain, ignite it

by satellites (brella)



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-25
Updated: 2013-05-25
Packaged: 2017-12-12 22:11:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/816614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brella/pseuds/satellites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So Jeff is a lippy assassin with daddy issues. Britta just wants to go home. Maybe they'll wind up helping each other out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	take the pain, ignite it

**Author's Note:**

  * For [usoverlooked](https://archiveofourown.org/users/usoverlooked/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LIBBY! SORRY THIS IS SUCH TOTAL SHIT! I promise I'll write you something cooler when I have the time!

Britta’s falling.

The wind roars at her ears and deafens her, and it presses into her bare shoulders, to the point that she’s sure it could hold her in place if she just weighed a little less. The force tears her domino mask away from her eyes and she gasps, finally having the good sense to flail for an arrow in her quiver before she winds up a pancake.

She manages to yank one out and nock it sloppily into her bow, and she maneuvers her body around in midair just in time to fire the thing at the pavement below. On contact, it explodes into a sea of red foam, and she closes her eyes and covers her head with her arms and lands in it with a cushioned splatter.

It knocks the air out of her, but nothing’s broken or even bruised. She pops her head up through the goop and gasps at the cold night air, struggling her way out of the cocoon, throwing her bow onto the sidewalk a few feet away so that she can free up her hands.

She splays facedown on the concrete when she finally manages to crawl free, her heart hammering through her every limb. Her ponytail sticks to the back of her neck. She’s pretty sure her nose is bleeding.

After a few seconds, she pushes herself up on all fours, still wheezing a little, pressing the tips of her fingers against the gravelly surface of the pavement. She closes her eyes and tries to even her errant pulse, but before she can, there’s a _whoosh_ from behind her and the sound of two feet landing, muffled, on the fire escape above her head.

“Buzz off,” she barks in an embarrassingly high voice. “I _seriously_ don’t have time to deal with you right now, Douche Street; I just almost died.”

“Yeah, nice landing, blondie,” snickers her present company in a wry and airy voice. “I gotta say, watching you fumble around trying to play hero is _way_ more entertaining than the assignments the Shadows give me. You’re looking _great_ since I last saw you, by the way. New diet?”

Britta grinds her teeth together and growls, finally pushing herself to her full height again. She sways just slightly before turning around, arms folded, to glower up at the spectator.

He tilts his head, and his silver face mask, reminiscent of a wolf, glints with the motion. All of his attire is entirely black, save for the glinting pair of sais on his belt. Britta flushes, though whether it’s from anger or something else, she can’t decide.

“The last time you saw me, I was naked," she grumbles, picking her way over the expanse of polyurethane foam to retrieve her bow. She plucks some scarlet flecks out of her hair and quiver. “I somehow get the impression you like me better that way.”

“I like you any way,” he drawls. “Although, yeah, I guess the kick I get out of seeing you does have a direct correlation to how much clothing is on your body.”

Britta doesn’t reply. She finds her mask a few feet away and reapplies it, to the sound of a tortured sigh from the spectator.

“Come on,” he mocks a whine. “Lemme see those eyes.”

“What’s the point if you can’t look at them?” Britta snaps. “Go _away_ , Jeff. I’ve got work to do.”

“First off, _ouch_ ; civilian names?” He scoffs. “And second, yeah, great job you’re doing with that work; falling off a building sure showed those drug dealers what-for.”

“I didn’t see you helping!” she snaps, whirling on him so that her ponytail whaps into her cheek.

He hooks one thumb under the chin of his mask and pushes it back so that it rests on his sandy hair. His smirk is sharp and malicious and ought to disconcert her, but it sends a pulse of something entirely the opposite leaping through her from the belly up.

“Nah, doll,” he coos. “I’d never try to stand-up a lady. Besides, how could I miss the chance to watch you show off those arms?”

Britta glances self-consciously at her exposed biceps, tugging uselessly at her black armguards.

“So what brings you to the neighborhood, huh?” he asks. “You miss me?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” She sneers. “It was just business.”

“Still on the hunt for poor little Annie, huh?” He hums and shakes his head. “That reminds me, kitten. I might have a tantalizing something-or-other for you in that department.”

She scowls up at him. “You couldn’t tantalize me to save your _life_ , Balto.”

He fakes a grimace. “You really need to start coming up with better nicknames, Goldie. But we’ll put that aside for now.”

He stretches, in the process dropping backwards to hang upside-down on the metal railing with his hands behind his head. Britta forces her eyes away from his abs, gulping at just how untrue her last statement had been (and how, for a second, her tongue twinges with want for running across the skin of his she can see).   

“You want in?” he asks, smirking triumphantly. “You can I can... team up, so to speak. Toddle on back from the Shadows with your precious cargo, maybe bang a little along the way. Everybody wins.”

Britta slings her bow over her shoulder and frowns up at the full moon overhead, her arms going akimbo. The tip of her ponytail tickles her through the fabric of her shirt.

“Sure, Winger,” she mutters. “And I know this isn’t a trap _how_ , exactly?”

In her distraction, she seems to have forgotten to keep an eye on Jeff – within a heartbeat of a second, he’s leaped down to stand directly behind her, his mouth at her ear, his fingers grazing her elbow. She stiffens.

“I guess you’ll just have to trust me,” he murmurs against the hollow of her ear, his breath hot and anticipating and, somehow, smug beyond tolerability.

Britta doesn’t move as his fingers move up to the zipper at her neck.

“As if,” she says breathlessly, just before, against every ounce of better judgment in her body, spinning roughly around to drive her teeth into his lower lip.  


End file.
